Revelation

Listen: I am going to tell you something.
You will not repeat it. You will be lucky
even to survive. I am the word
that made the word, that lit the void
and ordered it. When I speak your heart
will dance in answer. When I speak your pulse
will be a tide. When I speak your ears
will hold all human souls, and all their words
like a wood of birds, and every cry
is lonely, lonely. You will arch like sky
and yearn to answer, to call like thunder:
bones, come together. Wait.
Your words are code for breath. They stir
the lungs and tongue and cannot make the stones
bleed water, or set the sun
ablaze past colour. I am the word
that made the clay curl up in fingers.
How can you answer? Be still
and I will make an oak of you. Be still
and I will put a bolt through you
and turn your lungs to hands
of lightning. What have you wanted?
Wings. And end
to death. Remember, I have walked
as pulse and skin. I know
what you long for. Be still
and I will turn your ribs to wings.
If you speak your tongue
will catch like match. If you speak
your blush will turn to signs.
Be still and let me turn your breastbone
to the keel of a bird, a deep bone
to anchor silence. Let me put my word
on your tongue like a wafer.
Become salt. Savour.